Apple Intel Mac (Mactel) FAQ

Welcome to the Apple Users Forum at ubuntuforums.org.
This forum is focused on providing community support on the installation and setup of Ubuntu running on Apple hardware.

This FAQ is targeted at Users with a Intel-based Macintosh computers (mactel) with Core and Core 2 CPUs or Xeon. If you have a PowerPC-based Mac (G3, G4, G5) Please see the PowerPC FAQ. Please be sure to always check this FAQ and the Mactel-Support Community Support Documentation before asking a question in the forum, and when asking a question in the forum, post your Mac's version string.

Can I run Ubuntu on my Mac?
YES! You will have to reduce the size of your OSX partition in order to make room for Ubuntu.

How do I install Ubuntu on my Mac?(keywords: installation, vm, virtual machine, vmware, parallels, virtualbox)
Several scenarios for installing Ubuntu on an Intel Mac have been covered in the AppleIntelInstallation wiki page. If you are not ready to take the plunge and just what to try out Ubuntu, you can use a Virtual Machine running in OS X. VirtualBox is a free, open-source virtual machine that runs on a Mac.

Can I install / boot Ubuntu from an external drive?(keywords: installation, usb, firewire, external drive)
The short answer is, "no" (Though few and far between have claimed, "yes").
If you are willing to try something new. You can try booting via EFI.
You also may be interested in trying a Boot CD.
Reference: Old External Booting Discussion

What about Parallels / VMWare Fusion / VirtualBox / Virtual Machine X?(keywords: installation, vm, virtual machine, vmware, parallels, virtualbox)
Installing in a virtual machine is not quite the same undertaking as "Installing on your Mac". A virtual machine creates virtual hardware, including a virtual hard disk (contained in an image file) that you install to. You can ask questions in the forum here, but please make sure that you indicate you are using a virtual machine. You should also check the support forums for your virtual machine for specific help as well as ubuntuforums.org's Virtualization forumParallels Desktop Support ForumVMWare Fusion Support ForumVirtual Box on OS X Hosts Forum

Should I use 32 bit or 64 bit?(keywords: 32bit, 64bit, x86, x86_64, x64, amd64)
If you have a Mac with a Core CPU (not Core 2) then you can only use the 32 bit Ubuntu. If you have a Core 2 or Xeon, then which you pick is really up to you and what you plan to do. The 64 bit Users Forum has a great guide to the Pros and Cons of using 64 bit. NOTE that if you have 4GB or more of RAM, then you will likely need to choose the 64 bit version in order to utilize all the RAM.

What is rEFIt?(keywords: efi, menu, bootloader, partitioning)
rEFIt is a nice-looking boot selector for your Mac. It will prompt you to choose a partition to boot upon starting up and will default to booting OSX after a short timeout period. It also has some nifty utilities that are helpful when dealing with multiple operating systems on your Mac. rEFIt cannot partition your hard drive. rEFIt is not a boot loader.The rEFIt Project Website

Can rEFIt damage my Mac's firmware / void my warranty?(keywords: efi, menu, bootloader, partitioning, break, applecare)
rEFIt is not firmware. It is an efi executable. The Mac firmware (EFI) looks for efi executables in certain locations on a hard drive and will allow you to run them. It is much like having an app in OSX. You can easily remove rEFIt following the directions on their website. Some Apple store employees have claimed that rEFIt can break your Mac. There has been no evidence that this is true. If you are concerned about voiding your warranty, or Apple not covering an issue because of rEFIt, uninstall it.

What is the Mactel-Support PPA Repository?(keywords: mac, intel, mactel, team, support, apple, software, fixes, driver, repo)
Several savy Ubuntu Mac users have fixed bugs, and added functionality to certain software in order to make Ubuntu run better on certain Macs and placed them in a repository available to Ubuntu users until the fixes make it in to the main Ubuntu release.

Can I boot Ubuntu directly from EFI?(keywords: efi, bootloader, grub2, grub-efi, elilo)
This would be the ideal way to boot Ubuntu Linux on your Mac, but it is still, as of yet, relatively unsupported. If you would like to try it out see below.GRUB-EFI Installation Information

Why does the battery monitor not show the right percentage? (and other strange power-related problems).(keywords: power, suspend, battery, charge, capacity)
Try resetting the SMC.

Why is there are long delay booting up with only Ubuntu installed?(keywords: delay, efi, mbr, single-boot, ubuntu only, bless)
Because of how the Mac firmware works, it does not readily look for what Apple calls a "legacy OS" and searches for an EFI executable before resorting to starting the Linux bootloader. You can shorten this wait time by blessing the Linux partition.

How can I assign Right-Click to a keyboard key?(keywords: keyboard, mouse, mapping, xorg, shortcut)
There is a forum post on remapping keys for this purpose. It may be useful to others remapping keys as well.

Re: Intel Mac (Mactel) FAQ

Old FAQ is here, but is quite outdated and may contain incorrect information. Please use only for informational purposes and as a last resort.

Other tips and info for reference...

Why does the "alsamixer" tool only show PulseAudio?(keywords: sound, alsa, mixer, pulseaudio)
Ubuntu moved to using the pulseaudio sound server. You can still control the underlying alsa mixer by using this command to start alsamixer:

Code:

alsamixer -c 0

How do I get my sound to work the way I need?(keywords: sound, alsa, mixer, pulseaudio)
If you're saying "I've tried all the fixes in the wiki, and I still can't get my sound to work the way I need" then you might try installing some of the utilities mentioned in this post in order to enable/disable things.

Re: Intel Mac (Mactel) FAQ

Thats looking good, and it is time the sticky was brought up to date. Maybe an appended links list with more descriptive titles than here would be useful.
This post can be a place marker for such additions.

Re: Intel Mac (Mactel) FAQ

Originally Posted by pxwpxw

Thats looking good, and it is time the sticky was brought up to date. Maybe an appended links list with more descriptive titles than here would be useful.
This post can be a place marker for such additions.

I was going for something more like a traditional FAQ with questions and answers, which the old version had veered far from.